a very nice compact digital camera

The olympus Fe-180 is is stylish digital campact camera that has a resolution of 6Mega pixel and uses 2 penlighs batteries or NIMH (AA SIZE) for Power. The advantage of penlights is that the can be bought on practicaly every spot on the earth so there is almost everywhere a possibilty to buy power if the penlights (NIMH that came with the camera, are draint and need a recharge).

It is also a very simple to use digital camera , there is a simple but sufficient set up menu and a second menu for more frequently used shooting tips and quick settings.

What i love is the size and weight of the camera and the Digital Image Stabelizer (DIS) it helps to get a clear and blur free image at full zoomed out position and also in normal positions when your hands shake a bit.

The FE-180 has a relative short start up time and the switch to playback and shoot is just two buttons above the screen.
The camera also has a built in memory so you can even shoot a few pictures with out using a XD memory card.

On the internet some people say it has problems with regonizing and working with a large XD card of 2 GB (Gigabyte) now mine model does not have this limitation , my advise is go to a good camera dealer and test it out there .. if the camera does not reognize it you'll see it because you see a warning on the screen and a low (internal memory ) shot size or even nothing .

If you want to be shure buy a few 1 GB XD the difference in euro between 1GB and 2GB is about 20 euro. Olympus is a well known camera brand and the battery time is high (when a 2000 NIMH penlight accu's are used aproximately up to 500 shots on one charge)

The lens is a all glas lens that has a F 3.1 / F 5.6 Apature meaning that in normal till cloudy days the light efficiency is good till acceptable , it also hase a scene mode (sport mode and other handy modes) and it has a jog dial with auto, dsp mode (shaking hand) , movie , landscape and night modes.

The DIS (see above) functions not only on moving objects but also on rock steady things like buildings and people stading still, the camera uses a high iso combined with a fast shutter speed making it possible to get a blur-free and stable picture.

the shutterlag is acceptable 0.6 seconds for me at least it is , my advice is try it out , tha cemera lies good in your hands and there is a mini grip to holfd it , but it can be used on a tripod to .

There are a few minus points , one is that it has no occulair to view through.. instead there is live view what you see is what you get. The other disadvantage may be is that you cannot set it to a pre set iso (asa) , the fe-180 selects this for you

final notes : can i recommend it ? Yes i can ! Is 6 MP enough ? Yes it is enough infact i prefer real pixels above interpolated pixels ! For whom is this FE-180 a camera? For every body that wantsa good piont and shoot camera with some (not to many) great features (like DIS) . The picture quality is very sharp and good enough to make a large print of it.

Grades (1= terrible 10 = excellent)
easy of use : 10
speed: 7
size : 10
weight : 10
battery power on NIMH : 10
battery power on alkaline : Not tested yet assumed 6
brand: 10
Features : 7

overall : 8+